Hiten Parmar sits on La Fosse’s AI Workforce Council, the group of ten senior technology, data and security leaders helping to shape our Beyond Headcount Blueprint for the future workforce. He is Chief Procurement Officer at Beazley, has run functions and organisations across many geographies, and mentors people building careers without the traditional route in.
We sat down with Hiten to talk about where tomorrow’s talent is actually going to come from, and why he thinks a lot of organisations have their talent strategy the wrong way round.
Here’s what he told us, in his own words.
I mentor people who don’t have the classical route into a career, because that’s my background. And I’ll be honest: if I were that kid at 18, or 19, or 21 today, I’m not sure I’d get into the programmes I now help run.
That’s an uncomfortable thing to write. It’s also the reason I take this subject seriously, and the reason I think a lot of organisations have their talent strategy the wrong way round. Ask me whether the talent pipeline most organisations are relying on is fit for the workforce they’ll need in 2027, and the short answer is no.
There are pressures on it from every direction, and very few businesses have a workforce strategy with enough agility baked into it to absorb them. Some of that’s fair enough, because parts of this haven’t matured yet. We don’t know what a digital workforce really looks like, or how far AI reshapes the work itself.
But three pressures are already clear.
The first is that the workforce you already have needs re-energising. AI will highlight the activities that can be accelerated, collapsed, digitised or automated, and it’ll also highlight who’s struggling. That’s precisely why human skills move to the front.
The second is geographic, and it’s become geopolitical. Where you place your talent pools is now a live question. If you need to be more regional, how do you do that? If you need to be more local still, how do you do that?
The third is generational. How do you inject freshness by moving away from traditional intake models, or enhancing them, so you stay relevant in the mindset of tomorrow’s leaders, while still moving the organisation forward with the experienced people you have today?
That third one is where most plans go quiet. It’s the one I want to talk about.
Talent is the scarcity
When I look at what organisations actually have to assess now, the human parameters are the ones growing fastest. Judgement. Critical thinking. Collaboration. Relationship building. Trust. Integrity. Curiosity.
We’ve always claimed to hire for those things. In practice we’ve read them between the lines of a CV and hoped. They now need to be conscious and deliberately assessed, because they’re the things the technology doesn’t do for you.
Once you accept that, the question of where the talent comes from opens up. Talent is the scarcity. So you have to be open minded about which geographies and which social strata it comes from, and willing to work with raw material rather than only ever buying the finished article.
That’s a bigger shift than it sounds. Most hiring processes are built to identify the finished article.
“Are they ready? Well, which graduate is.”
Apprenticeships are a framing problem, not a quality problem
I’ve had the privilege of running functions across many geographies, and you see how differently societies treat the same question. In parts of continental Europe, career paths we in the UK think of as less academic are held in high regard, and the route into them is effectively a pseudo apprenticeship. Same thing, different frame.
Here we’ve framed it as blue collar and lesser. That costs us, because there’s a real concentration of talent coming out of schools and colleges doing the maths on university: the fees, the debt, the qualification, and the job prospects at the end of it. That’s a genuine barrier.
Now look at what an apprenticeship actually offers that person. It provides experience. It mitigates a debt profile, which matters most to exactly the people for whom social mobility is hardest. They earn money. They gain the qualification. By definition that should tick a lot of boxes.
Then add the people who can’t afford three years at university for other reasons, because they’re a carer or because of something else happening at home. You find real hunger and real purpose, and character traits that are typically resilient and can-do. Those are attributes you’re looking for in anyone, regardless of where they come from.
Every objection is a question about you
I’ve heard the pushback plenty of times. I’d put it to you that each objection says more about the organisation than about the candidate.
Are they ready? Well, which graduate is?
Are they socially awkward, can I trust them? That’s a question for you more than for them.
Are they really resilient? If somebody has had to take care of someone else, or be the adult in the room while they were still a child, or work around not having access to the things other people had, surely that’s exactly the resilience you say you’re searching for. If they can collaborate in an assessment centre because they can see what the problem is and how the different pieces come together, whether they learned that through sport, community or adversity, surely that’s the grit and the communication you want in future leadership.
So it comes back to framing, every time. Align it to the priorities and the direction of travel of the business, and you’ll find most cultures already think in these terms.
Build the case as opportunity, not drag
If you’re putting the business case to a chief executive, put it as opportunity.
It’s living the values and the culture you claim, which anchors it to the core of who you are. It brings shareholder value, because doing the right thing in society is positive for your brand. It identifies diverse talent, and tomorrow’s leadership. It gives you access to different ways of thinking, which keeps the organisation fresh and challenged.
And it doesn’t replace qualification, expertise or competence. It accelerates how quickly those things become useful to you.
In my experience those people also stay. A graduate will often look at two years and move on. Someone you brought in and coached tends to align to your values more readily, because you were the ones who shaped how they work.
There’s a brand halo too. Build sub-streams into different parts of your organisation and the communities around them, and you’ll find the companies doing this, anywhere in the world, have higher attraction and retention in those communities than the companies that don’t.
Your competitors are already scouting
Across the globe there are multi-billion pound sports franchises in every sport you can think of. Whatever you make of the money in sport, look at what they all do. They have a global scout network. They’re not just looking at Oxbridge. They’re looking for pure talent, wherever it happens to be.
So why wouldn’t you have that same mindset for your own organisation, however big or small it is?
If you’re not thinking that way, you’re missing talent and your competitor is picking it up. And if you’re doing it in a plastic way, without integrity or purpose, people will see it and go to somebody who’s doing it properly.
That’s why I don’t think of this as an optional extra.
I think of it as a survival imperative.
Want more from the AI Workforce Council?
Hiten is one of ten senior leaders on La Fosse’s AI Workforce Council, all contributing to the Beyond Headcount Blueprint on workforce planning for the AI era. Join the Council live at Beyond Headcount Live on Wednesday 4th November 2026, 6pm at Tower Suites by Blue Orchid, London, for an unrehearsed panel discussion and open Q&A on the Workforce 2027 findings.
If the pipeline Hiten describes is one you’re trying to build, La Fosse Academy is an approved apprenticeship provider. We recruit people from outside the industry, train them, and place them into technology roles over a two year programme.
Hiten Parmar is Chief Procurement Officer at Beazley and a member of the AI Workforce Council supporting La Fosse’s Beyond Headcount campaign.